


Goldencups

by Charmtion



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Dark Rhaegar, F/M, Falling In Love, First Meetings, Flowers, Happily Ever After... or is it?, Pre-Canon, Sexual Content, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-10-20 03:09:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17614286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charmtion/pseuds/Charmtion
Summary: It is easy enough to hate him when he moves as a man amongst men, as a stag amongst wolves — but here,now, as he turns that honey-sweet blossom over and over in his warrior’s hands… here, it is not so easy to hate him.What if love — or something near as sweet — had bloomed between the stag and the she-wolf before the silver prince could spin his song?





	1. Crown of Flowers

“You wish my eyes were violet.”

It is a statement, yet it hangs on the air as a question — silver-smoke, drifting impossibly soft from the man who speaks it. It lingers there, soft-spun meadowsweets on a night thick with the balm of spring: petals spreading, curling, blooming bright as the goldencups glinting in fire-glow. He plucks one now from the wild grasses, turns its trembling stem over and over in his fingers. Such great hands — _warrior’s_ hands — and yet the petals stay smooth, bright, honey-sweet in his palm.

Around them, the night is a blaze of feast and fireflame; one great long song of clatter and chatter and chuckle echoing amongst the star-flecked sky. Lyanna can feel her brothers’ eyes on her: quiet stormy Ned blinking up from behind his cup, bright-cheeked Benjen jostling for wine, broad-shouldered Brandon filling half the night with boasts and boisterous laughter. Try as they might, they cannot distract her, not _this_ night — not whilst the bear before her weaves his fingers with goldencups.

 _That_ is what he is: a bear, a brute, a bully. She has _seen_ him on the tourney field, strutting as a stag in the melee, brandishing a warhammer easily as a boy hefts a twig, aft and around and down: slashing, bashing, crashing, _crushing_. She has seen him mangle a knight’s arm, laugh a pearl-cut smile with blood-streaked cheeks — and extend a hand to lift his foe from the sand. _Bear, brute, bully_. She has seen him with her brothers, sparring with Brandon, roughhousing with Benjen, colouring Ned’s cheeks with bawdy talk. It is easy enough to hate him when he moves as a man amongst men, as a stag amongst wolves, as any other fledgling knight darkening his beard with another’s blood — but here, _now_ , as he turns that honey-sweet blossom over and over in his warrior’s hands… here, it is not so easy to hate him.

“I have no care what colour your eyes are.”

The lie cuts some of the sweetness from the warm spring night; sour-sharp, an eddy of bile to bitter the swirl of fireflame and flowers that surrounds them. It burns her tongue as it burns the air, turns her throat to white-heat as she looks up from his hands and sees that he is staring at her, a pearl-cut smile lifting behind his coal-black beard. _Bear, brute, bully_ … But his eyes are one, not three: warm. Or maybe two: warm and blue. Or maybe three: warm and blue and… _oh_ there she sinks as some lovesick maid into their depths. A strength like the tow of the sea: that storm-blue gaze pulls at her — but she is a wolf, _not_ a damn boat to ride upon wind-whipped waves, and she drags back with a strength to match the pull of his storm-blue eyes.

“You wish I played a silver harp,” says Robert. “You wish I sang songs so sad cups are filled with water instead of wine… shall I sing one for you now, Lady Lyanna?” He lays a spread-fingered hand to his chest and tips back his head with a flourish. “ _A bear there was, a bear, a bear_ — ” He blinks innocently at her as she laughs. “You wound me, Lyanna Stark. I have heard tell I’ve a voice to rival the dragon prince.”

“For true, my lord,” says Lyanna. “How else have you charmed your way into half a hundred hearts?”

 _And beds_ … the words die on her tongue, fall short of tripping past her teeth and flowing sweet as song from her lips. She swallows them down as though they are summerwine, cups a hand on the nape of her neck and meets his eyes: storm-blue whipping at soft grey stone.

“Hearts and beds,” says Robert, lifting the truth that drifts unspoken in her gaze. “Two distinct realms… and a path bare-trod that weaves between them.” He picks goldencups from the wild grasses as he speaks, twisting and weaving with that steady way of his: smooth, rhythmical, somehow _elegant_. “The maesters have a name for such a path that threads between the hunger of a man’s belly and the heat of a man’s heart… they call it love, Lyanna Stark.”

“Love is sweet, Robert Baratheon.” Her voice is a pinprick in the petal-soft air. “But it cannot change a man’s nature.”

“It could.” He gives a smile that sparkles as pearl beneath eyes of sapphire. “If a man was given the chance to try.”

“Hearts bleed,” she says softly. “Hearts break… easy as a hammer cleaves bone and blood, they shatter.”

Harp-song drifts amongst the fireflame now: eddies and ripples and surges akin to the sea that swirls warm and blue in the eyes fixed on hers. _Bear, brute, bully_ … Somewhere, the silver prince is singing of promises, prophecies, princes — petal-soft, filling the night with strange sorrow that makes her think of red mountains and winter roses and a tower jagged as a crown. _Bear, brute, bully_ … But sudden as a storm her hand is engulfed in heat as fierce as the dragonfire the silver prince sings of. She looks down and sees a great hand — a _warrior’s_ hand — wraps her own. He strokes a rough thumb across her silk-soft skin as he lifts the crown of goldencups from its perch on his knee and sets it gently on her head.

Yellow petals framing ebony curls: she is a wolf crowned with the colours of a stag.

She _should_ rip the wreath from her hair, toss it to the brazier that flanks them, watch it hiss and curl and turn to ash and ember, snatch her hand back from his and turn on her heel to rage at her brothers and curse her father and hate the stormlord she has been sold to — but it is hard to hate him, here, _now_ , as he cradles her hand dainty as the goldencups he feathered and threaded. Her fingers weave with his; her blood crashes wild as the sea to warm her cheeks and part her lips.

“Give me your heart,” he says. “I’ll see that it _never_ shatters.”

He lifts her hand, presses a kiss petal-soft that stings as a pinprick; she gasps, curses herself for it — even as she feels heat raging with the strength of a thousand wolves at her throat. Her fingers unfurl; he turns her hand, sets his lips to her palm as her fingers settle on the coal-black beard that brushes a welcome — a _threat_ — to her silk-soft skin. Welcome, threat, heart, bed, love, lust – she wants it, wants it _all_.

Gently, his teeth nip at the heel of her hand; she bites her lip, feels heat bloom between her legs, fire-prickles amongst the crooks of her ribs. His eyes draw her in: dusky-dark — the sea at night, beckoning, pulsing, glimmering bright as the flames that sear the valleys of her veins. _Oh_ , she wants it, wants to give into the tow of the storm-blue waves swelling in his eyes… But she is _not_ a damn boat — she is a wolf. Sharp as claws, her nails dig the brush of his beard, mark the flesh beneath; tooth and claw, they mark each other here, _now_ , amongst the drifts of feast and fireflame and flowers.

“Treat it as you would a crown of flowers,” she whispers, flare-eyed, smoothing the sting of her nails from his cheek. “And one day, I may make you a gift of it.” She leans forward, slow as a sun-warmed snake, presses a kiss above the tangle of coal-black beard and watches the fire burst in his eyes. “Shatter it… and I’ll see to it that the stag has _one_ less antler.” A trail of fingers, feather-light, the muscle of his thigh; she lifts her brow but cannot bite back her smile as he laughs. “Thank you for the goldencups, my lord.”

Lyanna leaves him there, her smile hanging sweet as the scent of the blossoms tumbling honey-gold the ebony of her hair. He is laughing still as she draws past her brothers: the unbridled bellow of a stag drowning out the sorrowful hiss of dragonfire.

She sleeps that night and dreams — not of violet eyes and silver strings, but of storm-blue sea and a warrior weaving a wreath of wildflowers.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. _A bear there was_... lifted from _The Bear and the Maiden Fair_.  
> 2\. _Love is sweet_... lifted (and adapted) from _A Game of Thrones_ Chapter 35: Eddard IX.  
>  **NB** : Lyanna and Robert were practically strangers in-canon; I fancied a chance to acquaint them prior to the Rebellion and all its triumphs and tragedies, to see what effect a fragile attachment between the two of them could have on the subsequent fallout that spun keep and kingdom... we'll see what happens; feel free to leave feedback etc. 🏵️


	2. Smoke and Shadow

He gives her more flowers come the morrow: buttery twists of yellow and white, the fragile green stems wrapped in sweet-smelling silk. A tumble of primroses and pansies; their scent slips slick as honey-mead the valley of her throat. Caught between the awning of her grey-and-white tent and the broad expanse of his black-and-gold surcoat, she shades her eyes from the weak spring sunlight, peeks up at him through the shadowy slits of her fingers and gives him the greatest gift in return for his flowers – a smile.

That _smile_ … it takes his breath away, makes him feel some lovesick maid caught in a floozy of springtime sweetness. A flush rises in his cheeks; beats of blood to match the fire-prickle blooming along the smooth white curve of her throat. Reflexively, he brushes a strand of ebony back from her face, fingertips tarrying the column of her neck, chasing the blot of red marring her porcelain skin. He longs to put his mouth to it, hold his lips there till the fire-prickle fades back to soft-fallen snow. Their eyes meet.

For a moment she is a doe — wide-eyed and trembling — in the shadow of a stag.

The sun slips behind a cloud; doe eyes turn wolf-wild again in an instant. She steps back, with purpose but not sharpness, the smile tangling on her lips as she sucks in the scent of the flowers. A flurry of soft smoky wool, she turns on her heel and fades into the shadows of her grey-and-white tent.

“Lyanna,” he whispers to the shadows. “Love.”

He cannot know what wonder that word works in the half-lit darkness of that grey-and-white tent: a smile radiant as the sunlight without — lifting high above a clutch of primroses and pansies, fading like dew on grass as his footsteps ebb to echoes carried away by sun-soaked air.

🏵️

Later, a girl carrying a black-horned jug in her hands tries to slip into his lap as she pours mead in his cup and honey-sweet words in his ear. Coos of _milord_ and _ser_ and _so strong, so fierce_ as she leans over his shoulder; a brush of bosom, a trail of fingertips, a graze of pearl-cut nails the sun-browned skin of his forearm.

He meets her eyes as he finds her hand: blue-black, bright, _beckoning_ — blinking fast as he squeezes her fingers and sends her on her way.

Down the ale-soaked table, she tries her tricks again: weaving and wafting, honey-hipped and honey-lipped. Soon enough she finds a lap; Brandon Stark gives a wolfish grin as she fills his cup with thick black mead, trails her fingertips across the swell of his shoulder. Beside his brother, flush-cheeked and stormy-eyed, Ned collars his half-full goblet, sinks it, and moves up the table.

“Pretty,” he says as he settles in his new seat.

Robert looks at him, brow half-quirked. “I suppose.”

“You _suppose_?” Genuine amusement sparkles in ale-soaked eyes. “Flower crowns come eve, posies at dawn… and _now_ Robert Baratheon sends a comely serving girl on her way. Are you well, my friend?”

“Where is she?” is all he says to _that_.

“Coming,” is all Ned offers in reply.

 _When_ , he wants to ask — but he bites back the question, finds another black-horned jug of mead. Bone-cups clank together; two boys-near-brothers drink to half a hundred toasts till the mead runs dry and the stars burst yellow-gold overhead. Somewhere, music rises sweet as woodsmoke: flute, pipe, drum — they both nod with relief that the night is not yet turned silver by a prince’s sadness.

“He watches her,” says Ned, indifferent even as his fingers tighten on the cup. “In the tourney stands, at the feasts… I’ve seen him.”

“Who?” asks Robert.

“Rhaegar.” White-knuckled grip; the bone-cup creaks. “Ever since she cried at that song of his — dreams of dragonfire or whatever it was about… ever since _that_ he’s scarce looked away from her.”

 _You wish my eyes were violet_ … He knows this —  _all_ of it: he doesn’t need his quiet storm-eyed friend to tell him so. A cittern joins the merry swell of flute and pipe and drum; he flecks at a knot of wood with his thumbnail. _You wish I played a silver harp_ …

“A prince can look wherever he wishes.” Carefully, he pulls a splinter from his thumb. “Pretty violet eyes… not many maids would look away.” A pulse of fire in his throat to match the silver prince’s song; a lung-deep breath to steady it. “Does… does _she_ look away?”

“See for yourself.”

He looks up just as Lyanna sweeps into the courtyard — soft smoky gown trembling like heavy water around her hips — flare-eyed and frowning as she throws a look over her shoulder and makes her way to the wolfen benches. Candleflame gutters and dips as she takes her seat; orange light catches on the crown of goldencups perched atop her head — honey-sweet as the smile she gave him at sunrise.

Yellow petals framing ebony curls: she is a wolf crowned with the colours of a stag.

Deep between the crooks of his ribs, he feels the jolt of it — a _glow_ of it the same honey-shade as the flowers in her hair — some strange smoke of sense strung between his belly and his heart: love — at least the first faint glimmers of it.

🏵️

The silver prince picks up his harp and all the smiles die; a steady ebb and flow of sorrow that drowns out chatter and chuckle sure as a seawave washing up the shore. He sings of what he said to her when first they met: promises, prophecies, princes — petal-soft words, falling as pinpricks to turn her dreams to drifts of red mountains and winter roses and a tower jagged as a crown.

She still does not know what he means by it all. She knows only that he frightens her as much as he once enchanted her: this strange sorrowful prince silver-haired as his harp, weaving fronds of fate and fear between the crooks of her ribs. Knows, too, that even as she looks at her plate, those violet eyes will be seeking hers amongst the ripple of silken sighs and shifting skirts as his song fills the courtyard.

 _You wish my eyes were violet_ … once, yes. But now — no, no, _no_. Violet eyes sought her out, seek her still; dreams and day, they turn both a swirl of smoke and shadow. _You wish I played a silver harp_ … once, yes. But now — no, no, _no_. Silver harp-song cuts sharp as steel through smoke and shadow; even now on a night warm as summer, it sets a chill to rest uneasy in her bones.

“Lyanna.” Fingertips warm and heavy on the back of her hand; a thumb, rough-shod and sun-browned, stroking gentle as a whisper. “My lady?”

His eyes — _blue_. Sea-blue, storm-blue, _warm_ -blue: a breath, a burst, a blossom blooming relief sweet as honey the column of her throat. Smoke clears, shadow, too — silver harp-song fades from steel to snow: soft-fallen, drifting as ash somewhere far from where her eyes meet those shimmering as a seawave before her.

Suddenly, she wants to drink him, to _drown_ in him. A strength like the tow of the sea: that storm-blue gaze is pulling at her — and she lets it. Wolf she may be, but she _is_ a damn boat at the mercy of the wind-whipped waves turning to glitter in the candleflame. Her fingers find his, grip tight.

A flash of thunder in those storm-blue eyes. “What has happened?”

What has _not_ happened? Everything — and nothing. A slender hand on hers in the shadows of the archway to the courtyard; words soft as song slipping silver-sharp into her ear. _Send me letters — once the tourney is over — soon we will meet again_. Violet eyes alive with flame, drinking up yellow-gold starlight; a kiss that landed feather-light on her cheek. She can feel it burn even now: ash and ember — the fire-mark of a dragon.

Fire-mark, fire-prickle: it smoulders to soot. Surely, they must _see_ it — the mark he has left on her, the red-hot brand fading fast to a wine-dark bruise on her porcelain cheek. _Send me letters_ … Wolf she may be, but he is a _prince_ — how can she follow the urging of her bones and blood to refuse him?

“Lyanna.” Fingertips warm and heavy on the ebony curls twisting over her brow; a thumb, rough-shod and sun-browned, stroking the crown of goldencups gentle as a whisper. “My lady, look at me.”

Sea-blue, storm-blue, _warm_ -blue: she _breathes_ again. “I am looking, Robert.”

“Good.” A half-quirked smile; soothing stroke of thumb trailing from the flowers in her hair to the curve of her cheek. “Yellow suits you well.”

Fingertips right _there_ , a cooling petal sweeping the fire-mark fast fading to soot and smoke and dust and air. She meets his eyes, matches his smile with one of her own, _feels_ the effect it has on him: a jolt, a _glow_ deep amongst the crooks of his ribs — amongst the crooks of her own, too. A sigh, half-shared between them.

Strangers, really, the pair of them — and yet…

“What would you do if I made you a gift of my heart?” she whispers.

Not a beat of silence, only — “Keep it safe.”

“From any?” she asks. “From all?”

“From any,” he says. “From all.”

A burst of starlight on her tongue: honey-sweet as the flowers in her hair. “From knights and lords? From sellswords… from princes?”

“I would fight an army to keep it safe, Lyanna Stark… a _war_.” A kiss, warm as his eyes, feathering her palm. “Believe it.”

Strangers, really, the pair of them: she a wolf and he a stag — and yet in his eyes she sees a strength to match her own: wind-whipped, wolf-wild, white-shot. A strength like the tow of the sea; true it pulls her, tumbling, amongst its currents. The last sorrowful silver-stringed notes fade to nothing; violet eyes rove restlessly. She does not see them, does not even _feel_ them — the world is blue, for now: sea-blue, storm-blue, _warm_ -blue.

A last breath before she drowns in it, in _him_.

“Come with me.”

* * *


	3. Blossom

_Come with me_.

He would go anywhere — sand, sea, snow, sun-baked plain — _anywhere_ if she commanded it. He would scale jagged mountains, tumbledown cliff-faces, jade-emerald forests, storm-tossed waves, wind-swept tundra — _anywhere_ if she commanded it. He would cross every realm, every threshold of river and valley and eagle-gliding mountain pass — he would make all and everything bow to her will if she commanded it.

A lung-aching breath; his heart is already just so before her: bowed, bent, _brimming_ with the glow her smile sets in it.

 _Come with me_.

Anywhere, he means it — and so he follows her, meek as a lamb.

She is a ripple of smoke and shadow in her soft grey gown; billowing and twisting as the night breeze catches at her skirts, filling the air with her scent: flowers, _wild_ flowers, all the colours of winter — dove-grey, snow-white, fire-blush, night-black. He is drunk on it, _drowning_ in it; thick as honey-mead it coats his throat, plunges as fire to his belly. A skein of ebony hair twists over her brow as she turns to glance back at him; he reaches out, catches the edge of it with a fingertip, watches it slip as black silk from his grip as she spins again — pretty as a dancer, soft-stepped as a wolf.

Moss-stoned wall gives way to a world where men and gods come to meet. It is a tease of ancient scents: soil, stream, sap, silver-edged leaves glowing bone-white in the moonlight. Charred ash skittering across the star-speckled sky: bats spread-winged, swooping to the rhythm of their hunting. There, at its heart, a white-fingered weirwood tree clawing up between nestling pines and stooping sentinels. There, stood moon-pale amongst its crooked roots, right _there_ —

“Have you never seen a maid before?”

Teasing, but her eyes are bold and _bare_ — like the rest of her.

“Your brothers…”

“Aren’t here — but I am.”

“Yes.” His voice is a brass-hinged creak. “You _are_.”

A bird-tilt of her head; half-narrowed eyes to match the smile tangling her lips. She stands, hand on her hip. He swallows hard-fought breaths and _looks_ at her.

Hair a black twist of braids and goldencups, cheeks soft velvet made ivory by moon-glow, breasts rising with steady breath, dusky nipples ice-hard — fighting with the soft grey light shining wolf-wild in her eyes as she draws him from the trees.

Anywhere, he means it — and so he takes her fluttering fingers, lets her pull him flush against her.

🏵️

That first moment their bodies fit flush together — her brow level to his broad chest, her chin upturned to meet his heavy-lidded gaze — she feels a glow take root within her heart. No more than an ember, fainter than the dragon’s fire-mark fast-cooling on her cheek; yet it flares with her breath, glows brighter with every sweep of his storm-blue eyes over her bare frame — each rib, each rise, every curve, every dip.

“Lyanna…”

Her hand lifts to his mouth; spread-fingered, she silences him, feels the pull of his lips against her palm as he gives a soft chuckle: incredulous, impatient, _imploding_. He watches her, stiff-shouldered, scarce breathing, as she pulls loose the laces at his throat. Deft, almost _dutiful_ ; her fingers do not shake as his do, buried in the bark of the weirwood at her back. He lets loose his grip on the tree as she slips the black-and-gold doublet over his head, the sleeves sighing as his arms are freed.

“My father sold me to you as a shepherd cuts a bargain for his prettiest ewe,” she says, nonchalant as her fingers sliding the linen shirt from his shoulders. “Seems to me neither you nor I have had a chance to get a look at what we are buying.”

Flare-eyed, she looks at him from beneath her lashes, feels the glow surge from her heart to her belly; red-hot it turns her blood to flame.

His is a warrior’s body: beaten metal, hard-packed with more muscle than there is skin to contain it, ripple-shod in the moonlight. He is all edges, all sharp clean lines: mountain-range shoulders, boulder-broad chest, narrow-tipped waist, oak-tree arms, sword-rough fingers sinking the soft white flesh of her hips.

“Oh,” she says. “ _Oh_ …”

It was easy enough to hate him when he was nothing more than her brother’s foster-friend, when he moved as a man amongst men, as a stag amongst wolves, as any other fledgling knight darkening his beard with another’s blood — but here, _now_ , as he traces soft-edged shapes over and over with his thumbs to her hipbones… here, it is not so easy to hate him.

Here, _now_ , she does not hate him — here, she _wants_ him.

“I will never be a southron lady.” Her lips ache for his; she fights through breath treacle-thick to form her words. “I will never be powdered or perfumed or _proper_. I will be as I am here, _now_ — a wolf with wildflowers in her hair.”

“I was not your choice, I know it well enough.” A finger, sword-rough sword- _strong_ , trailing the valley between her hipbones; she shivers, dips her eyes to his: dream-drunk, they lap at each other. “But here, _now_ — do you choose me, Lyanna Stark?”

She lifts to her tiptoes, presses a kiss above the coal-black beard. “Mmm… _yes_.”

Slowly, he sinks to his knees before her; knuckles, bone-blunt, running a streak of fire the swell of her thigh. A hard-edged breath eking from between her teeth as he gazes up at her, eyes dark as the sea at night. Wordlessly, her legs part for him.

🏵️

He is _full_ of her — and yet still starving.

He has known women — _many_ women, _too_ many women — but none have wrapped around his senses like this, like _her_. When she mewls, a foreign sound from such a fierce wolven maid, he wants to drink up the echo: swallow it, treasure it, store it deep within the pits of his bones. _Mmm, yes_ … His tongue darts out; her knees buckle, her silk-soft thighs part wider beneath the red-warm mist of his mouth. Fingers twisted into his hair, a softer pull to mirror the one he has on her right _here_ between her legs.

“Robert.”

 _Gods_ , he is a green boy again to hear his name slip honey-sweet from her plush half-parted lips. He lifts her leg, settles it over his shoulder, dives for the taste of her: summerwine, orange blossom, meadowsweets, fireflame, _life_ — smoking, spreading, blooming like a summer rose across his tongue.

He is _full_ of her: scent, sound, sweetness, slippery fingers, salt-streaked skin, silk-soft breaths — and yet still starving.

“Rob- _ert_.”

 _Seven hells_ , he wants to drink her, to _drown_ in her — especially now as her fingers twist tighter, scratching at his scalp, as her head tips back against the weirwood, as her thighs turn from silk to iron against him, as a cry breaks from her lips: a wolven howl every bit as wild as the maid it echoes from.

Lost in it: that _sound_ — a honeybee sinking its sting into his skin, a seawave pulling sand grains across his tongue, a wolf flexing its claws against his throat. _Mmm, yes_ … He is on his back, half-lifted half-slumped over the crooked roots of the weirwood tree; her thighs, still wet from his mouth, part to sit astride him. She is breathing hard, lip caught between sharp white teeth; dream-drunk, she gazes down at him with fire in her eyes.

“Come inside.” Smoky voice to match her eyes. “Here, _now_ , where the gods can see.”

It hurts him, to be _responsible_ but — “You would regret it, I think.” Fingertips brushing the milk-white dip between her breasts; he near growls to feel her shiver into his touch. “Lyanna, you _would_.”

“Would I, Robert?”

Her hips roll, his eyes close — and her mouth is on his in half a breath. Plush lips pulling at his, glancing, tangling, _stinging_ ; her sharp white teeth nip his bottom lip. A bead of blood blooms there: a crimson blossom — till she tears its petals away with a sweep of her thumb, kisses the red-rust salt of its sting away from his mouth.

A melting pot of tastes, that first kiss: the salt of his blood, the smoke of her scent still summerwine-sweet on his tongue, the swirl of them both. _Mmm, yes_ … Stag and wolf, man and maid, strangers, really — and yet when she pulls her lips from his and drinks deep his eyes he knows her completely, utterly, _always_.

“I know you, too.” Her voice a tumble of honey like the goldencups half-hanging to her ebony hair. “And I will not regret it, not now — not ever.”

Fingers on his belt, yanking; her mewl striking hunger hard in his belly as his thumbs skate the ice-hard peaks of her breasts, as his fingertips slot the arrows of her ribs and pull her closer. Close, so _close_ — and then footsteps, laughter, the distant glow of a torch through the moon-edged leaves of the godswood.

 _Gods_ , the sight of her bare arse leading their escape will stay with him till he is ash-and-bone in a funerary urn, he _knows_ it. For now, it keeps him warm as the laughter echoing from her lips as they slip — half-clothed, red-lipped, breathless, smelling of each other’s skin — like wraiths from this world where men and gods come to meet.

* * *


	4. Winter's Wreath

He makes her a new crown when the first one wilts: gold and green — all the colours of spring — against the black of her hair. A twist of goldencups and daylilies; the air is full of their smoke-thick scent as he sets the silk-soft petals into place.

“Yellow suits you well,” he says, his voice the murmur of the sea at low tide. “Lyanna.”

A smile she cannot hide: snow-white, snow- _bright_. “Thank you, Robert.”

He kisses her fingers, leaves her to the shadows of her grey-and-white tent. Doe-eyed, she stares after him, like some lovesick maid caught in a floozy of springtime sweetness — charred driftwood clinging to the stormy currents set by his eyes, his warrior’s hands winding their gifts of flowers, his stag-belly chuckle, his very _name_.

 _Robert_ – _Rob-ert_ … His name: a lullaby, a rhyme, a rhythm that fights to set anew the beat of her heart. His name: sea-blue eyes, storm-blue eyes, _warm_ -blue eyes. _Robert_. His name: salt-streaked skin, slippery fingertips, summerwine-sweet tongue. _Rob-ert_ – _mmm, yes_ … His name: a rope of fire pulled from her throat, a bead of blood sucked from his lip, a breathless kiss beneath moon-edged leaves. His name —

“I looked for you at the feast — you were not there.”

A voice like silver strings — soft and sharp all at once — and then a shadow at her side: a tower of night-black plate and ruby-shot heat. Fire-prickles skate her throat; blood-warm, the dragon’s mark glows on her cheek. Slender fingers — soft and sharp all at once — closing on her wrist, turning her toward searching violet eyes: bellflowers one moment, _belladonna_ the next. Narrowed this morrow, eagle-sharp.

“I sent men to find you.” Arrow-point fingertip pushing her chin skyward; a ghost of breath, mint and spices. “Laughter in the godswood… but no sweet Lady Lyanna.”

Treacle-thick throat, but no sweetness to her voice. “I went to pray — my brother jousts at noonday. The gods would see his aim straight and true.”

An echo of the truths spun beneath moon-edged leaves. _Come inside — here, now, where the gods can see_. Dream-drunk, she remembers him beneath her: a warrior pinned by a wolf, the strength of each enough to destroy the other… _Oh_. Fingertips sharp as dagger-points on her wrist now; violet eyes black-tipped arrows on her face.

“Alone?”

A flash of thunder behind her eyes: white-forked. “No man can joust alone.”

“Witty — _and_ beautiful as a winter rose.” Soft again, arrows lowered, dagger-points faded to blunt caresses. “You will give me your favour for the jousts today, Lady Lyanna?”

“My favour is promised to another,” she says softly. “As is my hand, Your Grace.”

“And your heart?”

 _Not yours_ , she wants to say — wants to _spit_. Bare a moon’s turn since first they met — he singing his silver-stringed song, she with cheeks made crystal by teardrops — and the charm of it all has died. Died a thousand deaths, like the thousand smiles that die every evenfall when the silver prince takes up his harp and sings of tears and twilights and the death of kings. But _that_ is what he is: a _prince_ — how can she spit venom at his silver face?

“My heart is my own.” Firmer than she feels; thundering heartbeat as he cloaks her in his night-black shadow. “Mine to give… mine to _keep_.”

He leaves: a ripple of ebony in a world of grey-and-white. She puts her hands flat-palmed to the ashwood table; lung-shallow breath, trembling lips. _Robert_. A prayer now — a lullaby, calming as the murmur of the sea at low tide.

🏵️

Mid-morning: white sun, black-knife shadows, the weight of an oaken shield solid on his arm. Aft and around and down, Ned fights back well enough — but soon his white-painted shield is a mess of splinters, arms link-locked to protect his face as a warhammer hovers light-winged as a hummingbird over his left shoulder. It flits away, lands with a clunk on the wild grasses half-dented by a splintered shield; an arm like an oak-tree, a warrior’s hand helping him to his feet.

“Nearly had you.”

Robert passes him a wineskin, grinning. “Aye, _nearly_.”

A ruby raindrop of wine soaking into close-cropped beard, wiped away with a sleeveless arm. Bare-chested, two boys-near-brothers sparring by the brook that cuts a path at their feet; soil, stream, sap, silver-edged leaves — memory-scents that make his mouth water even now in glaring sunlight. _Mmm, yes_ … Salt-streaked skin, fingertips slippery as the brook murmuring across its river-smooth pebbles.

“Best get back.” Ned is smoothing down his silken doublet. “Noonday jousts.”

Black-and-gold, he finds his own tunic on the riverbank. “The wild wolf and the dragon prince… my money’s on your brother.”

Coin is glittering silver-gold in every palm as they cross to the tourney stands; stags and dragons, the odd copper glint of a handful of pennies. A cacophony of sound: trumpet-blare, stewards shouting, destriers stamping, whetstones rasping, vendors hawking ha’penny horns. Ale-soaked and rowdy, most of the crowd – but they dip aside for the black-and-gold stag, the grey-and-white wolf, all rose-warm shouts and laughter.

“He was looking for Lya again yester-eve.” Ned’s voice a wisp of northern smoke cutting through the sunlit crowd. “Till _you_ spirited her away somewhere.”

A flash of pearl; they share a smile. “She showed me your tree gods.” _And everything else_ — he bites the thought back. “Said some words amongst their white roots.”

“Robert Baratheon _praying_?” Rare laughter: the rip-roaring peal of a brass bell. “Soon be a septon’s cowl in place of a surcoat.”

“Aye — and I’d _still_ throw you on your arse holding splinters for a shield.”

Breeze catching at a direwolf banner, a tableau of pups beneath it: Benjen fastening a buckle, Brandon swatting away his hand, Lyanna holding the bridle of a black stallion draped in grey-and-white. It shifts and snorts — a warhorse scenting battle-blood — shakes its head as she whistles softly to calm it.

“Fine horseflesh.” He runs a hand down its neck, already silk-slick with sweat. “Even if he shares the wolfish eye of his rider.”

Her fingers brush against his, damp with the same earthy scent. “My father bred him… it is no wonder he has a touch of wolf blood in his veins.”

She smiles now: snow-white, snow- _bright_ — he is blinded for a moment, the world reduced to the shadows of sunlight playing across her velvet cheeks. Then her hand lifts, a ribbon white as her smile set in her soft-cupped palm. He takes it.

“My favour,” she says, voice a tumble of honey like the goldencups and daylilies twined in her hair. “For the flowers… for _you_ , Robert.”

It is as if she has given him the sun, so bright his smile shines.

🏵️

Sitting in the hot-stone noonday swell — sun-warmed silks, snorting chargers, giggling ladies, heckling lords, splintered lances, hoarse-throated stewards, Ned’s _endless_ teasing — she cannot know that the sun-bright smile will soon die: a drift of ash swept away by springtime breeze, carrying with it the laughter of all the crowd.

For now, a clatter of silver-smoke plate, a curse threaded with northern sounds — Brandon falls in a whirl of grey-and-white to the tourney sands. Benjen fetches the wayward stallion; flare-eyed and frothing, it fights him all the way back to the tents. _Fine horseflesh_ … She meets sea-blue eyes swimming in the crowd of lords opposite her; that sun-bright smile widens for a moment.

“Our brother is missing a mount.” Quiet, Ned’s voice at her side — and full of mirth. “And _you_ are missing a ribbon, sweet sister.”

It is a searing ache, pulling from those sea-blue eyes half a crowd away — but she raises a brow as she rounds on her brother. “I am _missing_ nothing — I know _exactly_ where it is.”

“ _Look_ at him — like a bear with a honeypot.” They laugh at that; then he is all warm sincerity, finding her fingers, smoothing the pearl of her nails with his thumb. “I think he will make you happy, Lya… truly, I do.”

“You told me the same half a year ago.”

“Half a year ago you boxed my ears for daring to say it.”

She touches the white-forked scar flickering on his pulse-point. “Boxed them well… you _still_ have the mark to prove it.”

“A badge of honour.” His eyes — soft grey-banked clouds — skim her face as sunlit shadows dapple her skin. “Just like Robert’s little ribbon.”

Blood-blaze colours her cheeks; across the swell of sand and crowd, she sees the thread of it wrapped around his fingers: snow-white, snow- _bright_. She turns back to find a smile pulling at her brother’s lips: feather-light, she shares it.

“It was easy to hate him when he was your friend, _Father’s_ choice... a fool in his cups the first night of the feasts.” Back again, as it was that first moment their bodies fit flush together: a glow between the crooks of her ribs. “But here, now — he is _my_ choice and I think he will make me happy, Ned… truly, I do.”

Splintering shouts cut off the sweep of his reply. They turn to follow the eyes of all the crowd: a white-armoured knight kicking up dust as he tumbles from his horse, his curses lost in a swathe of ragged cheers as the prince cuts his victory — hoofbeats black-tipped arrows in the sand.

He rides a palfrey the same spun silver as his hair — but he is death upon it: ebony and charcoal shot with blood-red rubies. A steward takes the flame-plumed helm, slips a wreath of winter roses into the prince’s hands as the palfrey wheels — sand-spray, silver-spun — edging toward the crowd.

She feels his shadow as she felt it this morrow: a tower of night-black plate and ruby-shot heat setting the fire-mark on her cheek hot as the noonday sun. Sand-spray, silver-spun, the palfrey dances past the rosewood thrones of king and princess.

 _Robert_ , is all she thinks. _Robert_. A prayer now — a lullaby, calming as the murmur of the sea at low tide.

“Winter’s wreath for winter’s daughter.” A voice like silver strings — soft and sharp all at once. “I name you queen of love and beauty, Lyanna Stark.”

Quietly, the smiles die: drifts of ash swept away by dragon’s breath.

* * *


	5. Lake of Fire

Hammered bronze, the lake at sunset. It takes up half the world; for a moment, she is — beautifully, soothingly — _small_ : a bent-backed beetle curled on its shoreline.

Behind her, lost between the trees, the hulking shadow of the castle spread dark as wine upon its hill. A scatter of jewel-bright shades within that shadow: ebony, charcoal, blood-red rubies — a tower of night-black plate on a silver-spun palfrey.

Blue, too.

Not sea-blue, storm-blue, _warm_ -blue. No — ice-blue: _those_ roses, laid as fronds of frost the tufty bank beside this lake of fire. She shifts her fingertips over them; their scent settles as dust on the air: a ghost of breath, mint and spices, _him_. Lashes flutter — a light-winged blink — and the lake is blinding as she gazes at it: hammered bronze, _burning_ bronze.

What will they say — the singers who will one day spin a tale of this tourney, of its lords and ladies, its prancing palfreys, its trumpet-blare, its silver-haired champion, its wreath of winter roses — its reluctant wolf-eyed queen?

 _Wolf_ — she was a doe in _that_ moment: frozen as the roses in her lap. A doe before a dragon — will the singers chant it prettily as that?

Warmth fades with the sun dipping its fingers into the lake; ice-prickles flood her skin as evenfall feathers the sky. One moment it is a fire-blush of sunset — red-ripe cherries amongst a bed of orange-flaring marigolds — the next, ink-dark, streaked with the hazy smoke of starlit clouds.

She watches them a while: frost-feathered clouds — drifts of ash swept away by dragon’s breath. A shiver in the dark; she remembers Ned beside her, tight-fingered grip on her wrist as if he could hold her back — _safe_ — from the silver prince’s night-black shadow. Yet it fell, that shadow — on her, on he, on them _all_.

Glowing on her cheek, the dragon’s fire-mark. She brushes her face; finds it hot as the noonday sun even now in moon-shot darkness. Behind her, all the shadows of its maker. _Before_ her, a mirror of the ink-dark sky: a lake of fire turned ebony-and-silver.

Light-stepped — with all the grace of a doe, the litheness of a wolf — she leaves her gown on the tufty bank beside the crown of frost. Water parts for her as bone to blade; cool current at her ankles, her knees, her hips, her waist, her throat — an ice-cold kiss lapping as a wolf to a stream at the fire-mark glowing on her cheek.

 _Robert_ , as the water curls at her cheeks. _Robert_. A prayer, a lullaby — calming as the murmur of the sea at low tide, cooling as the lake caressing her skin.

🏵️

They — her brothers, their bannermen, a handful of hounds — make for the godswood: heft-held torches, bark-brays echoing amongst that tease of ancient scents pulling at him even now: soil, stream, sap, silver-edged leaves glowing bone-white in the moonlight. Still, he leaves them to their weirwood, follows the water instead.

No fireflame, no frantic hound, no friends to share the search with – only _this_ : a glow deep between the crooks of his ribs — some strange smoke of sense strung between his heart and hers out there in the star-shot night: love — a guiding-light brighter than any heft-held torch and snuffling hound.

Around his fingers, the ribbon twines: snow-white, snow- _bright_ — never to be eclipsed by shadows cast by silver-haired princes stepping pretty as their palfreys. Lung-deep breath; fury rushes to his throat, red-hot as it was halfway across the crowd lulled to silence by a voice soft and sharp as silver strings.

 _Winter’s wreath for winter’s daughter_ … Even as she sat with eyes — trembling doe’s eyes in _that_ moment — glowing cloud-grey beneath the crown of flowers gifted to her on the morrow: gold and green — all the colours of spring — against the black of her hair. _I name you queen of love and beauty, Lyanna Stark_ …

Lung-aching breath; he would _kill_ the dragon prince, snap his fingers easy as a harp’s silver strings, force him to his knees, make him beg for her forgiveness in that mint-and-spice voice of his — but _that_ shadow is not what he seeks now. No, it is the sun he seeks: fled in the same breath that saw all the smiles die.

Midnight: moon-glow, silver-edged shadows, the weight of a heavy cloak crooked on his arm. She is shivering when he finds her — knees drawn up to her chest, brow rested on their bone-blunt tabletops — at the lake-edge. Black-and-gold, the cloak is a whirl of shadow as he sets it on her naked shoulders. She burrows into it: a sleek-haired fox delving through snow-drifts to get to its den.

Beside her, _those_ roses.

A crown, a garland, a laurel — a _wreath_. That is what those roses are, given so sweetly to a daughter of the north. Blood and fire: they are that, too. Death, dust, danger — _war_. They are one and three, four and five. They are everything: they are _all_. Lung-deep breath; he steadies the red-hot flames striking at his belly.

“They will sing of it, won’t they? Make the world think I wanted it.” Brow still to her knees, her shoulders tremble beneath the heavy weave of his cloak. “Robert… I _never_ wanted it.”

A flash of thunder in storm-blue eyes: white-shot. “Let the sheep sing what they will — you are a _wolf_ , Lyanna Stark.”

She lifts her face as she lifts her fingers. Gazing at one, grasping the other; he sinks beside her on the tufty bank. Snow-white, snow- _bright_ : the glimmer of a smile as she strokes his ribbon-wrapped palm with a fingertip. Lashes flutter — a light-winged blink — as she presses a kiss to his knuckles.

“You kept it.”

“I will always keep it, Lya — _always_.”

Grey-water eyes — an eddy across the lake — pulling his heart ripple-shot against the crooks of his ribs. Kisses light as her lashes; butterflies feathering his knuckles, his palm, his wrist, then — slow as a sun-warmed snake — the night-cool skin of his throat. Reflex makes him open like a flower to her touch; tilt-necked, a rumble of thunder on his tongue as she flows fire through the coal of his beard, sinks her lips honey-sweet on his mouth.

A frost-feathered leaf made to melt by a lake of fire — he sinks into her kiss: drift, dip, _dive_. Hard-edged breaths, plush lips half-parted and drawing wider; he wants to drink her, _drown_ in her. A mewl in her throat; a mirror to his want — leaf to lake, they dive together.

🏵️

It starts as the lake did: lapping at her ankles, her knees, her hips, her waist, her throat — but it is not the ice-cool kiss of water, nor the hot-stone flare of a fire-mark. No, it is something else: sun-warm, jewel-bright — rays of light turning a lake of ice all the fire-blush shades of sunrise.

Like the sun as it crests the sky, it climbs higher and higher till it burrows deep to join with the glow tangled between the crooks of her ribs. Now it is _she_ who is a lake of fire: skin a song of sunlight in the shadows of the night — water-ripples marking the path his fingertips take as they trail rough-shod over her frame.

Hammered bronze, his body above her. His shoulders take up half the world; for a moment, she is — beautifully, soothingly — _small_ : an arch-backed wolf curled against a warrior.

She does not know the sounds she makes — a mewl, a howl, a whimper — she knows only that he drinks them hungrily, knows only that she would stay forever beneath him so long as he keeps moving as he moves here, _now_ , between her legs — slow, deep, full, _endless_ — so long as he always looks at her as he looks at her here, _now_ : storm-blue eyes holding all the wonder of the stars stretched above them.

“Robert.” Garbled voice, she shudders; his mouth on her throat, the curve of her shoulder, the arrow of her collarbone. “Rob- _ert_.”

Slower, deeper; sword-rough fingers brushing the hair back from her brow. “Lyanna… _love_.”

An eagle-sharp eclipse: starburst, scattered flecks of flame before her eyes. Tilt-necked, chin skyward; she gives a cry that shatters the cool-edge of the night till he tangles his lips with hers, drinks down her moan as if it is honey-mead — pulls back dream-eyed as if it is something far stronger.

His elbows buckle as she pulls him down with the lithe strength of a wolf; the breath leaves her lungs in a tide as he crushes against her ribs. She holds him fast — fingertips arrowheads burrowing at his hard back, legs link-locked around his hips — feels the warmth of him spreading inside her like the lake of fire blooming in her belly. Lips to her throat, trip-trod as he finds her mouth again.

Fingers in her hair, the ribbon still wound tight around them: snow-white, snow- _bright_. She feels the smile pull at the strings of her face as she looks from it to him; feels his own smile grow pearl-cut against her lips.

“Did you mean what you said?”

He rests his brow to hers. “About the ribbon?”

“About my heart.”

“Aye, I meant it — then, now, forever… _always_.”

Hammered bronze, the lake reflected in his eyes at sunrise. It takes up half the world; for a moment, she is — beautifully, soothingly — _safe_ : a wolf with wildflowers in her hair curled sleep-soft against the warrior who wove them.

* * *


	6. Milk and Honey

Come the morn, the lake is a softer shade of fire. He watches from its edge as she wades out into the water. It slips at her ankles, her knees, her hips; ripples like flint-sparks stirring across beaten bronze. Her shoulders lift as she takes a breath, then she is gone: a tip of soil-streaked soles as she kicks below the surface.

He runs a hand over the space she has just left. Sun-warm, the soil leaves its earthy scent on his fingertips. Something deeper than the scent of the earth lingers there as he rubs a skein of wildgrass between his fingers. _There_ , like a spot of day-old ale at the back of his tongue: summerwine, orange blossom, meadowsweets, fireflame, _life_ — smoking, spreading, _her_ scent blooming like a summer rose in the first grip of spring.

Another flint-spark; her face crests the water amidst a stone’s throw of ripples. She looks at him without surprise to find him sunk to his shoulders in the lake. Somehow, a few petals of the crown he wove her still cling to her ebony hair. He can smell their sweetness as she finds his shoulders with her hands and rests her brow to his chin.

“I told you I would not regret it.” Her voice is soft as the water at his skin, an ebb and flow of easy currents. “To think only half a moon ago, I hated you.”

She lifts her face to share his smile at that. “I cannot blame you for that, Lya.” He runs his thumb the line of her cheekbone. “I know well the tales your brothers tell of me.”

“Your warhammer, your wine, your whores… a whelp in the shadows of the Vale.” Her lips part beneath the path of his thumb. “ _That_ is what Brandon told me of you… Never Ned, though. Ned only ever told me the truth.”

He tilts his head. “What truth was that?”

“That you would make me happy,” she says softly. “I did not believe it, not _before_ … but here, now — I believe it well enough, Robert.”

He rolls her lip beneath his thumb. “In spite of the other… truths?”

“The past is the past.” An ice-glimmer to her eyes at that; he knows he will never cross its promise, its _threat_. “I can look beyond it.”

Her eyes linger on the lake-edge behind them, the pale blue roses that adorn its tufty bank. He sees their shadow flicker across her face, dappling with the early sunlight limning her cheeks. Gently, he cups her chin in his hand and lifts her lips to meet with his.

Warm and good, the kiss casts its spell; fronds of frost melt into the mists of the morning.

🏵️

There is uproar when she returns — Robert at her side — to the grey-and-white tents half-dismantled beneath the direwolf banner. It is a hive buzzing merrily. At once she spots the three bees driving all the activity: Benjen fighting to fold a canvas neatly, Brandon barking orders in a voice stained by yester-eve’s wine, Ned dropping the bundle he carries with a shout as he spots her. She is swarmed, then — lost to the drone of half a hundred greetings as bees run mad by honey.

“ _Where_ have you been?” snaps Brandon.

No doubt he means to make her shake with the power of his fury; but she sees the wild touch to his dark grey eyes. Fear lingers there, not fury. Like smoke, the edge of anger evaporates; he grips her hands in his, searches her face frantically.

“I went to the lake.” Her voice is a soothing balm to their relentless buzzing, sweetening the air with its honey. “Robert found me as I was watching the dawn come in.”

A flicker of surprise to hear _that_ name easy on her tongue, but her brother masters it quickly: clasps the stormlord’s arm, gifts him his most brilliant smile, gives his _heartfelt_ thanks. Ned is not so easily fooled. She sees his eyes — soft grey-banked clouds — sharpen as he flits his gaze over Robert.

Finger-rumpled hair, a pinprick-crescent from her teeth on his throat; the marks she left shine as stars on his skin. She swallows, fights the ache to lick her lips as the taste of him spreads as smoke across her tongue. A shiver runs through her as she watches him talk the same steady way he weaves crowns of flowers: smooth, rhythmical, somehow _elegant_. A shiver — as if she is back in the night-cool water, her skin a soft song against his.

“Lyanna.” Quiet, Ned’s voice at her side — and mirthless. “He sent men to find you. We met them in the godswood. I… I managed to keep them from following the river to the lake.”

She thinks of pale petals on dark water now, a breath of their scent — mint and spices — steadily drowned by current and ripple. “You are a good man, Ned, and a better brother.” Their eyes meet, grey clouds scudding together. “No dragons stumbled upon my hiding spot. Robert kept me safe.”

“Soon, we will all run apart — wolf and stag, both.”

A furrow in her brow at that, although it is no surprise. “Soon?”

“Aye,” he says. “I go with Robert back to the Eyrie. You with our brothers to the grey stones of home. We have missed first light… but noonday is as good a time as any to set out.”

_Noonday_ , it strikes her belly like an arrow. Razor-tipped, the bruise of it swells between her ribs, cloys as metal in her mouth. But _there_ , like day-old ale at the back of her tongue, _he_ lingers: woodsmoke and earth and honey-mead. She savours it a moment, then meets her brother’s eyes and nods bravely.

🏵️

He breaks his fast with them as the sun climbs the sky. Black bread, cold meat, bone-cups of small ale. She cuts an oatcake into quarters, spreads amber honey, chides Benjen for catching up the crumbs with a finger-sweep. Sips from her cup; an ivory bead of milk on her lips before she dabs it away with her thumb. They eat and drink amongst an idle stream of chatter and chuckle, eyes on each other always.

Around them, the hill is a stretch of half-torn grass and forgotten banners. They scatter as half a hundred shades across the green: brown, blue, pink — ebony and charcoal shot with blood-red rubies. It lies limply as all the others, nary a dragon’s breath of wind to stir it to wingbeat and wildfire. He looks at it a moment, thinks on how much he would like to grind it to dust beneath his hammer.

Flecks at the tabletop with a thumbnail, breathes slowly, thinks of another pretty sight instead: Lyanna in the lake, rosy-limned by the early sunlight, smiling as she plucked at a wreath of winter roses and — petal by pale petal — set it drifting out to drown amongst the lake’s slow ripples. _The past is the past_ … He sees it reflected in her eyes now; they share a secret smile as she takes his arm and leaves her brothers to their bicker-flecked packing.

“A year till next we meet,” she says softly. “Is that the truth of it?”

He nods as they walk between an alley of yew trees. “Aye, that’s the truth.”

“I will keep a petal from the crown you wove me and you will keep my ribbon.”

It is a statement, yet it hangs on the air as a question — silver-smoke, drifting impossibly soft from the wolf-maid that speaks it. It lingers there, soft-spun meadowsweets on air thick with the promise of spring: petals spreading, curling, blooming bright as the goldencups glinting at their feet. He plucks one now from the wild grasses, tucks its stem behind her ear, runs a strand of her silky hair through his fingers.

“I will keep it safe, Lya.” His heart is a hummingbird against his ribs, flitting at the nectar-sweet flare of her eyes on his. “Your heart… I’ll keep that safe, too.”

He tastes milk and honey when he kisses her. It is as if he knows this kiss may be their last — as if she knows it, too. Her fingertips find his neck; he hopes the arrowhead press of them will leave wine-dark bruises to join the teeth-marks she left below his ear. But he will not need their dull ache to remember her here, _now_.

No, this milk and honey moment will be forever in his heart, fletched knife-sharp the crooks of his ribs: the taste of her, the feel of her soft and strong all at once between his arms, the snow-white smile she gives him when they at last draw back, breathless, bruise-lipped.

“A year,” he says, his eyes mirroring the promise of his words as she cups his face in her hands; a bear to a honeypot, he leans into her touch. “Any longer… I’ll come find you, my love.”

* * *


End file.
